Underground
by jelenamichel
Summary: Ziva recapped her current situation: no light, no noise, stale and dirty air, bound wrists and ankles, and lying in a wooden box. So, was it time to panic yet? Rated T for language. We'll get to the adult themes later.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Now that I've gotten post-finale revenge fluff out of my system, I can focus on something with a plot. I don't know where this came from. It hit me this morning while I was eating toast and watching Weekend Sunrise (hi, Australia!). I expect it'll all be done and posted within the week.**

**Disclaimer: I can see how you may be confused. NCIS does seem to be awfully fond of torturing/punishing its female characters, which I admit I'm about to do. But no, I don't own any of it.**

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Ziva slowly awoke with a throbbing head and a strange feeling running through her body. She felt jittery all over, kind of like someone had poured packets of sugar through her veins. When she opened her eyes, the complete darkness she found made her heart sink, and her hopes didn't get any higher when she inhaled the thick, stuffy and earthy air.

She was lying down, but the position she was in, half twisted onto her right side, was sending a stabbing pain through the joint of her shoulder. When she tried to roll onto her back and pull her arms out from under her, a searing pain shot through her right side, making her cry out and bringing tears to her eyes. She stayed still long enough for the pain to dull a little, and then realised that her hands were tied together in the small of her back. She looked down at her body, but in the darkness she couldn't even see her chest.

She flexed her feet and worked out that her legs were out straight, but also tied together at the ankles. With all this information, Ziva was prepared to admit that the situation didn't look good.

"Fuck," she sighed to herself. She tried to wrestle herself into a sitting position, but two feet off the floor her forehead smacked into a piece of wood. "Ow!" she hissed, and lay back down. Okay, things were looking worse.

With her feet, Ziva felt her way around her surroundings – or lack thereof. She was in a box, roughly three feet wide, two feet tall and six feet long. She could feel the grain of wood under her hands, and she knew the description was distinctly coffin-like. A shiver ran through her, but she wouldn't consider panicking just yet.

She listened for any noise from outside the box, but all she could hear was her own fast breathing. She recapped the situation for herself: no light, no noise, stale and dirty air, bound wrists and ankles, surrounded by a wooden box. So, was it time to panic yet?

Putting it off for just a little longer, Ziva tried to think of what had happened. The last she remembered, she was taking a quick run through the park near her house after work. It had been a quiet night – the chill in the air had kept people inside and Ziva had barely had to pass anyone on the path that wound through the park. It had been a completely ordinary night, and Ziva couldn't remember anything that might have led to her being knocked out and dumped in a box.

She'd been buried below the ground before, once during her training in Israel and another time while on a mission in Belize. It was a situation that was somewhere near the bottom of Ziva's list of favourites. And Ziva was Mossad, well acquainted with the art of torture, so that was really saying something. She gave the lid of the coffin a hard kick with her feet. The action delivered a dull thud, more or less confirming to Ziva that she was indeed somewhere around six feet under.

Her heartbeat sped up momentarily, but Ziva controlled her panic again. If she panicked, she would surely die here. She had to focus on realities. For one, she was bound to be missed when she didn't show up for work. She didn't have a clue how much time had passed between her run and when she'd woken up, so it was hard to say how far away the beginning of the next working day was. But when it did come, she knew that Gibbs and Tony would be looking for her. Right? Ziva rolled her eyes at herself. For all she knew that would be 12 hours from now, and Ziva knew there was no way she had that much air.

She could think of only two other options: 1) wait until whoever had put her in here came back and then go assassin on their ass, or 2) kick and punch at the lid and hope for the best. She didn't like her chances with option one. That put her fate in someone else's hands. And besides, if they'd already buried her, why would they want to come back and dig her up again? So that left option two. Take control of the situation herself. She didn't like her chances much with that option either, but if she was going to die, at least she'd have some say in how it happened.

So Ziva started kicking. For two minutes, she kicked the shit out of the roof of her prison. When she hadn't made an impact after that time, she conceded that she probably wasn't going to get anywhere. The earth piled on top of her would keep the wood from splintering out, and even if she did get through, it would just bring a ton of dirt into the box.

Okay, _now_ she started panicking. She was going to suffocate. It was a far less gruesome death than Ziva had always imagined for herself, but it was effective.

"Fuck, fuck FUCK!" she yelled. This was NOT how she wanted to go out. She was enjoying life again now that she was back in DC with her surrogate family. She'd hated returning to Israel and stepping back into her role as the sharp end of the spear, as her father put it. When she'd been injured during the bomb blast in Morocco last summer, she couldn't deny that the thought of letting death take her had crossed her mind. She'd been so tired, so afraid that the rest of her life would be spent under an assumed name as she took orders to kill or be killed. That life was not what she wanted anymore.

But she'd fought the impulse to give up and now she was glad that she had. She'd made it back to NCIS and had been welcomed with open arms by the small group of people who loved her. She had started dancing again like she had from early childhood until she was 20. She had started regularly joining Abby, Tony and McGee for after-work drinks and took the opportunity to let them further into her life. She had made it though countless nights on Tony's couch, talking through his guilt over Jenny's death and putting together the foundations for something more than a friendship and partnership. She'd moved into a bigger apartment, one with a small patch of grass out back, and had started investing in proper furnishings. She'd even quietly looked into obtaining permanent residency in the US.

All these things had worked together to make her feel like she belonged here, in DC, doing a job she loved and surrounded by people she cared for and who made her happy. Ziva didn't want to lose it all now and end up dead and already buried.

But the situation was going to be difficult to get out of without help. Dare she hope that Tony already knew she was missing? How long had she been down here? Probably not long, or she already would have suffocated. It wasn't that big a box. Then it hit her; she'd had her cell phone with her when she went running—Gibbs demanded that they had their cells on them at all times. Did she still have it?

She rolled onto her right side, ignoring the pain of probable broken ribs, and yanked her arms around until she could get her hand into the pocket of her sweat pants. She almost wrenched her arm out of its socket in the process, but it was worth it when her fingers touched the cool metal of the phone.

"Oh, thank God," she sighed in relief. So she had the phone, but her next challenge was using it. She couldn't see it, and she couldn't bring it around in front of her face. She'd have to do it all by touch and memory.

She flipped the phone open and held it the right way up. Then she paused. Who the hell should she call? 911 would be a waste of time, and if she succeeded in dialling one of the teams' numbers on the keypad successfully, what was she going to tell them? "I think I'm in a coffin buried underground…somewhere. Come get me"? She needed more useful information than that. But what else could she give them?

A vague description of the circumstances was better than nothing though, Ziva decided. At least word would get out that she needed help. And it didn't matter who she called, as long as she called someone and they got the message to the people who could do something about it.

She felt around her keypad until she hit the right keys: Go toContactsSelect contactUse number. Ziva didn't have a clue who was on the top of her list. She'd like to scroll down to Gibbs or Tony, but she didn't know how many people were on the list before them. She felt her way over the other side of the keypad and hit another button, turning the speaker on. She heard the line ringing, and muttered a prayer of thanks to whoever for having her put in a pocket of earth that got good cell phone reception.

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**Chapter 2 is already up. Hope to see you over the page.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: These characters? Not mine. The show? Also not mine.**

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The phone rang four times before Abby came on the line, sounding just as perky as she had at 7am. "Hey, Ziva! What's up? You want to go to that movie after all?"

Ziva almost burst into tears in relief. "Abby! Oh my God! Your name is Abby! Starts with an 'A'." She couldn't believe her luck. "Thank you, God."

Abby was quiet for a second before playing along with her strange behaviour. "Uh, yeah. It's a good name. Are you okay? You sound like you're calling from a—"

"Coffin," Ziva broke in, hearing her voice distort with the tightness of her throat. "I think. I am almost certain. I need your help."

Abby sounded amused, rather than worried. "A coffin? Are you at my place?"

Ziva sighed and rolled her eyes. Out of everyone, only Abby wouldn't be immediately concerned by someone calling her from a coffin. "No, Abby. I don't know where I am."

"What's going on?" Abby asked, starting to sound a little more worried.

"I don't know what's going on!" Ziva yelled back, then thought better of it. Yelling got Abby upset, and Ziva didn't need an upset Abby adding to her problems right now. "I'm sorry, Abby. I just need help."

"Ziva, hold on," Abby said to her, then started yelling. "Tony! Tony, come here. It's Ziva. She's in trouble."

Ziva heard Tony's voice faintly on the line before Abby said to him, "I don't know! Something about a coffin."

"Ziva?" Tony's concerned voice filled the coffin.

"Tony!" she yelled, surprised by how desperate her own voice sounded, and the tears suddenly in her eyes.

"What's going on? Are you okay?"

"No," she replied quickly, hearing the hysteria creeping into her voice but not even caring anymore. "I am far from okay. I just woke up in a coffin with my arms tied behind my back and my legs bound. It's pitch black, there's no sound coming in and it smells like dirt in here."

There was a pause while Tony processed that, then he took a deep breath. When he replied, his voice was calm, even if it was obvious he wasn't. "Okay. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was running in the park near my apartment."

"Did anyone approach you?"

"I don't remember."

"Where were you? On the path?"

"Yes."

"Good. Where?"

"I don't remember."

"Did you pass the lake?"

"Yes. And the south gates." She squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to remember. "I think I had passed that spot near the picnic tables. Where we had to stop that time when Gibbs called?"

"Good," Tony encouraged. "When was that?"

"I don't know how long ago!" Ziva yelled, getting panicked again.

"Ziva, listen to me," he said seriously. "I asked when it was, not how long ago."

She knew he was trying to get her to think rationally. "I went out as soon as I got home. I think it was just after 1900 when I left. So maybe it was 1930."

There was a longer pause, and it didn't fill her with confidence.

"Tony? What time is it?"

"It's coming up on 2100."

Ziva blinked in the dark. "Oh."

There was silence across the phone line as they both considered that. There was only enough air in a coffin above ground to last maybe five hours. Underground, it had to be half that. And she'd already used up about half of _that_.

"I'm going to die in here," she stated, her voice wavering now.

"No, you're not," Tony said firmly, then tried to make a joke. "Geez, Ziva. Show some faith in your partner, okay?"

"I do have faith in you," she argued.

"Abby, get Gibbs on the phone now and tell him to meet us in your lab," Tony said. "Zi? Is your cell phone fully charged?"

She sniffed back some tears. "I charged it this morning, and we spent most of the day in the office, so it would be close."

Tony sounded relieved. "Okay. This is going to be a piece of cake. Seriously, Ziva. We're going to look back on this next week and wonder why we even bothered to panic. Abby and I are at this minute heading out to the car. We'll put in the little flashing red light and we'll be in her lab in under 20 minutes. And then it'll only take her two minutes to pick up the GPS signal on your phone, and we'll know exactly where to lead the cavalry to. See? Cake."

Ziva wished she could share his forced optimism. "You're not the one stuck in a box six feet under," she said quietly.

She heard him sigh. "Not physically." When she didn't say anything, he started making declarations. "I promise you, Ziva. I promise I will find you, and I promise I will get you out of there, and I promise I will make you dinner tomorrow and let you watch that stupid Henry VIII show you love so much on my big TV all weekend. Okay?"

Ziva let out a laugh, or was it a sob? "Okay."

"Do you believe me?"

"I believe you," she told him. He would find her. She just wasn't confident it would be before her air ran out.

He hesitated. "Just hold on, okay?" There was a pleading note to his voice that stabbed at her heart. "As soon as we know where you are…I'm going to make your driving look like my nonna's. That's how fast we're going to get there."

Ziva had to swallow the lump in her throat to reply. "Okay."

She heard two doors slamming, and then an engine roaring to life. At least they'd made it to the car now. She heard some muffled talking on his end, then his voice came back clearly.

"Abby says Gibbs is halfway to the lab already, and he's calling Ducky and McGee." She heard a horn blare, and Tony swear loudly. "Fuck! Abby, it's not _World's Wildest Police Videos_!"

"This punk's disobeying the little flashing red light!" Abby argued.

"Don't _ram_ him in response! Go around!"

Ziva held her breath, waiting for the crunch and sound of shattering glass. It didn't come.

"Ziva?"

"Still here."

"Aside from being buried alive, are you okay? Are you in pain?"

She'd hoped he wouldn't ask, but it would be cruel to lie. He needed all the information she could give. "I think I have broken some ribs. And my head hurts a lot."

"Where?"

"At the back."

"Sure that's not just from Gibbs today?"

She laughed for him. "Yes."

"We'll bring Ducky with us.

"Tony, I think I've been drugged as well. I feel…off."

"Don't worry. You can sleep it off when we get you out."

After a few moments of silence, wherein Ziva again took stock of the situation, a fresh set of tears fell down her cheeks. She hated feeling so helpless, but that's exactly what she was right now. It was the helplessness that was making her panic.

"Tony?"

"Yeah, beautiful?" he sighed, his voice breaking on the term of affection that had tumbled out of his mouth without thought.

"Don't tell anyone, but I'm really scared," she said honestly.

She heard him sniff. "I am too. But try to relax and save some energy for how much you're going to kiss me after I get you out

Ziva groaned at the truth in the statement. "Oh my God, Tony. You're going to get it. I swear."

She heard the smile in his voice. "Well. If anything will light a fire under me, that will."

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**Chapter 3 will be up tomorrow. Why don't you set yourself up with an alert? After reviewing, of course.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Holy schnikes, you guys. Thanks so much for all the reviews, story alerts and favouriting. Keep 'em coming! They keep me writing.  
There were a few questions, so let me clear some things up: Tony and Ziva are not dating in this; it's set in season 6, but before all the, uh, 'ugliness', as I shall now refer to it; yeah, I doubt cell phones work underground as well, but just go with it. **

**Disclaimer: I'm only borrowing them. **

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True to his word, Tony and Abby pulled up at the Navy yard 18 minutes after leaving the movie theatre foyer. Ziva was still on the line and still speaking, albeit slower, which Tony thought was probably the only thing keeping him from having a heart attack right now. He was putting great effort into keeping his voice calm for her, even if he'd been punching the dashboard the whole way over. He knew he'd need some ice at some point.

As soon as the car was stopped, Tony and Abby took off towards the main building at a run. They flew through the front doors, swiped their security cards, and both took the stairs down to the basement. The elevator would take too long, and it didn't get great reception.

Gibbs was waiting outside Abby's lab with two coffees in hand and a stern look.

"Hey Gibbs," Abby called as she sprinted past him and ran straight to her computer. She'd been hoping that McGee would make it there before them to start the trace, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Tony came to a stop in front of Gibbs, and wound up the mindless conversation he was having with Ziva. "And that's the real story behind how I got that scar on my chin. Hey Ziva, hold on for two seconds? I gotta brief Gibbs."

At her assent, Tony held the phone further away from his mouth, but kept it fused against his ear in case she called out. "She was running in Washington Park at about 1930. Her usual route in the evening, it's only about five miles. The last she remembers was about three miles in and then nothing. Doesn't remember anyone being around her, and I think we can assume that Ziva would know if she had a tail."

Gibbs nodded in agreement, and Tony continued. "Woke up, disoriented, at 2100. Pretty sure she's underground. She's not getting any ambient noise coming in and no light. She says there's the smell of earth around her. Her legs and arms are bound, possible broken ribs and a concussion. She's starting to wheeze and she's not as coherent as she was."

Tony's head spun as she heard himself talk about Ziva like she was some…case. But she was. The team would investigate her kidnapping the same way they would any other missing persons. Well…kind of.

Gibbs nodded to Tony and held out a cup of coffee. Tony glanced at it but shook his head. "No, thanks," he said, and pushed through to Abby's lab. He was wired enough, and didn't need Gibbs-strength caffeine running through his system. He was trying to keep calm.

Tony stood at Abby's shoulder as her hands flew over the keys. He felt Gibbs at his shoulder.

"Let me talk to her," Gibbs said.

Before he'd realised he'd done it, Tony spun around to look at Gibbs with a completely uncensored 'you've got to be fucking crazy' look on his face.

"I've got it," he said through gritted teeth. Out of all the cases Gibbs thought he could have fucked up over the years, he'd have to be completely insane to think that this was the one he'd drop the ball on.

"Is she getting tired?" Gibbs asked quietly.

Tony covered the mouthpiece with his hand and took his aggression out on his boss. "Yes, she's fucking tired. She's running out of air. What do you think?"

"Cold?"

Tony held his free arm up in a 'what the fuck?' gesture. "Yes! Buried underground, Gibbs, on a cold fall night in Washington. She's freezing."

"She thirsty?"

Tony stared at him for a full two seconds. "Are you trying to get me to punch you in the face?"

"Tony," Abby started gently, but Gibbs shook his head at her. He'd take the brunt of Tony's anger now, without complaint, because his lead agent needed someone to take it out on. Plus, he needed the answer.

"I gotta know what condition she's in," Gibbs said. "Duck's got to know."

"Yes, she's thirsty," Tony spat back at him. "But not hungry, because the drugs and the lack of air are making her sick. She's starting to shake. Plus, the cold weather this last week has given her the sniffles, and she's had a recurring cramp in her lower back for the last month. Anything else?"

Gibbs nodded. "Keep talking to her."

"Where's McGee?" Tony asked. "I need him to pull security footage of the park."

"He's getting the truck ready," Gibbs said calmly. "I'll do it."

If it had been a different situation, Gibbs may have smirked at the twin looks of horror he received from Tony and Abby. "I'll make a phone call to park security," Gibbs elaborated.

Tony and Abby turned back to her computer. "Got anything, Abby?"

Abby smacked the keyboard and let out a growl of frustration. "It keeps cutting out on me! This stupid program's had a bug in it all week."

When he found himself coming close to grabbing Abby's arm and shaking her, Tony walked away to the far end of the lab. "Get it fixed," he told her.

He found a space on the bench against the far wall that wasn't crammed with machines and assorted forensics equipment, and hoisted himself up. He took a deep breath, and shoved the tears that threatened to spill deep down.

"So, Ziva," he began, his voice once again as smooth as he could make it. "Where were we? I think you were about to tell me what you and Abby got up to last month that had you both call in sick the next day."

As Gibbs made the call to Washington Park security, he watched Tony struggle. Ziva probably knew that her lifeline was having a hard time right now, but he doubted she knew how much. Tony was putting in an Oscar worthy performance of the concerned but calm partner—vocally, anyway. In the flesh, he looked like he was about to start jumping up and down and throwing punches. And that was nothing compared to what he'd do if they couldn't find Ziva quickly. In his gut, Gibbs knew what would happen. He was close to losing two agents tonight.

McGee bounded into the room, breathless from running up the stairs. "Ready to go, boss," he said to Gibbs.

Gibbs nodded towards Tony. "He's your boss tonight."

McGee looked between them, but didn't say anything. He stepped over to Abby. "Did you get it yet?"

"No!" she wailed. "It's that same damn bug we've been hitting all week, McGee! Every time I get within a mile of the signal it switches off."

McGee looked over to Tony, who was still carrying on a conversation. "He's still talking to Ziva, right?"

"Yes! Her phone is on and transmitting. I don't know why we can't pinpoint it." She slammed her hands down on the keyboard again and started yet another trace.

"Is he okay?" McGee asked her quietly.

Abby took three seconds to look back over her shoulder at him, the answer clearly written on her face. "Take a guess."

McGee let it go. "What can I do?"

"Security footage of the park Ziva was taken from is coming through," Gibbs said. "Run it through from 7.15 to 7.45."

McGee took over the second computer, waiting for the vision to come through.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs called out. "What was she wearing?"

Tony paused mid-sentence. "What?" He wasn't pleased with the interruption.

"What was Ziva wearing?"

"What were you wearing?" Tony asked her, then relayed the information. "Red jacket and black leggings."

Gibbs stood at Abby's shoulder. "We need something now, Abs."

"I'm trying, Gibbs!" she cried, tears forming in her eyes.

"I know," he said gently.

"Tony's going to kill me," she said. "I'm letting him down."

At that moment, Tony slid off the bench and joined the rest of the team at the centre desk. His hand was over the mouthpiece again. "I'm starting to get dead battery beeps," he told them. "This is taking too long."

"I'm sorry, Tony!" Abby said, turning her damp eyes to him. "I can't get within a mile."

Instead of exploding at her, Tony seemed pleased. "Where?"

Abby pulled up a map with a circle over it. "Probably Rock Creek Park. Let me try one more time."

Tony blew out a breath. "Thank God it's not Canada," he said, moving his hand from the mouthpiece again. "Ziva, we're real close. Almost there."

Abby hit ENTER on the search one more time, and the whole group held their breath. Convinced it was taking too long, Abby's hand went for the mouse, but McGee put his hand down heavily on hers.

"Wait," he told her. "Give it a few more—"

BEEP!

"YES!" Tony, Abby and McGee yelled in unison. Gibbs rubbed his face in relief.

"Abby, print that out for us with coordinates," Tony fired off. "McGee, get it loaded into the portable GPS. Gibbs, take McGee and Ducky in the truck. Abs, you're with me. Ziva, don't panic. We're on our way."

Abby grabbed the map off the printer and passed it on to McGee, and the whole team rushed for the door.

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**Ooh! I hope they find her. Maybe they will in the next chapter. It's up already, so let's all go find out!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Stiiiilllll not mine.**

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Down in the garage, Gibbs swung himself into the driver's seat of the NCIS truck, and Ducky slid into the middle seat to make room for McGee.

"Have you found her, Jethro?" Ducky asked, concern creasing his features.

Gibbs pressed his foot to the floor "We found her, Duck," Gibbs replied as they shot forward, not bothering to hold his smile. "McGee, you got that thing working yet?"

"Not yet," McGee admitted. "But it'll be up by the time we hit the park."

"How is she?" Ducky wanted to know.

Gibbs swallowed. He wasn't going to let this affect him until after they'd pulled Ziva out of the ground, and so gave Ducky a detached run down of her physical condition. "She's sleepy and cold. Getting nauseous, not breathing well."

Ducky nodded thoughtfully. "How long has the poor girl been down there?"

"'bout two hours now."

"Oh dear. Is Anthony still talking to her?"

"Yah." Gibbs glanced in his side mirror as Abby, at the wheel of Tony's car, swung in behind him just as they reached the Navy yard gates.

"Good," Ducky said. "It will help her focus."

* * *

Ziva was losing focus. Despite Tony's best efforts to keep her engaged, including stories about his days as a teen model and why he never ate chicken, Ziva was zoning out. She noticed how she had begun to shake. How she was finding it ridiculously difficult to deliver a full sentence. How hard to was to breathe. She didn't think she had too much time left, and so far Tony had not said the magic words: _"We're digging you out now"._

"Ziva!" Tony said sharply, drawing her focus again. He'd done that a lost in the last little while.

"Mhmm?"

"Don't 'mhmm' me," he said firmly. "Answer my questions with words. Where do you stand on _The Bourne Identity_ versus _The Bourne Supremacy_?"

Ziva frowned as she tried to comprehend the question. She took a couple of shallow breaths before she answered. "I liked the first one we watched," she replied. Had she slurred that? That couldn't be good.

"_Identity_," Tony said. "I agree. That car chase scene when they're in the Mini always makes me think of you. Although I don't think I've seen you drive backwards, I believe you could."

Beside him, Abby nodded as if she had no doubt in her mind.

Ziva lost track of what they were talking about. "Yes," she wheezed, hoping she did actually agree. Then she jumped when she heard three loud chimes. Had Tony made that noise? That couldn't make sense.

"How are you doing that?" she asked.

"It's the phone, Ziva," Tony replied patiently. Ziva got the feeling they'd already covered the source of the funny noise, but she honestly couldn't remember what he'd said. It was getting so hard to concentrate.

"Tony?"

"Yes. I'm still here."

"I'm so sleepy." Hadn't she already told him that? Why wouldn't he shut up?

"Don't you dare go to sleep, Ziva," he said seriously. He exchanged an anxious look with Abby.

She heard the chimes again.

"I can't breathe." Did she say that aloud? She hoped not. Never show your weakness. People would just exploit it.

"Ziva! Stay awake!" Tony yelled at her. "If you fall asleep I am going to get so mad at you!"

Three more chimes.

Why was he yelling? "Don't be mad at me," she sobbed, as a wave of emotion hit her. She was panicking again, and Tony was yelling. What had she done? He was so moody these days!

"I'm not," Tony backpeddled quickly, then repeated himself when the chimes again cut him off. "I just want to keep talking to you."

"Tomorrow," Ziva sighed.

Tony made the funny noise one more time, and then, finally, he went quiet. He must've hung up, Ziva thought. Sighing, she dropped the phone and listened to the silence. She knew she shouldn't sleep. Tony didn't want her to. What the hell was his problem? In the end, Ziva didn't have a say in the matter, and neither did Tony. The ninja fell asleep.

Inside the car, Tony blinked in shock, and brought he phone down in front of his face for the first time in almost an hour. "Oh my God," he said ominously. "I lost her."

Abby shot a panicked look at the phone in his shaking hands. "It was the battery, right? The battery ran out. You didn't _lose_ her. Tony? Right?"

Tony navigated through Abby's phone to her speed dials, and found Ziva at number four after Gibbs, McGee and himself. He hit the call button and brought it back to his burning ear. It diverted straight to voicemail. Tony hung up and dialled again. Voicemail.

He raised both arms as if to punch the dash again, but Abby had enough of that.

"_Tony_! No more Hulk!" she ordered. "It's not helping Ziva, it's not helping you, and it's not helping the resale value of this car!"

"FUCK!" he bellowed, then covered his face with his hands. "Abby, tell me we can still track her. Even if her phone's not on. We can still find her, right?"

Abby put what was meant to be a calming hand on his arm. "Yes, Tony. We got the coordinates, remember? And she's not moving. She'll be exactly where the GPS says she is."

Tony sighed in relief. Of course they had the coordinates. He'd asked a completely stupid question, one that he wouldn't have if he'd just kept his cool. But he was finding that impossible. He'd been okay when they'd been talking, but now that his link to her had gone and couldn't be re-established, the major panic attack he'd been holding in the wings was about to take centre stage.

"It's taking too long," he said, more to himself than to Abby. "I'm not going to make it in time. She's going to die in there."

If Abby'd had the proper leverage, she would have smacked him. "She is _not_!" she argued. "She's Ziva, and she knows that you're coming. She won't let you down, Tony. So don't you dare fall apart right now and let _her_ down."

A bubble of hysterical laughter came out of Tony's mouth in reply, so Abby pushed him again. "Tony, just go back to whatever Zen place you were in while you were talking to her, okay? Then stay in that place until she's in the back of an ambulance. I promise I'll let you freak out in the car on the way to the hospital."

Tony took some deep breaths and tried to force sense into his head. Abby was right. If he had a meltdown now, he'd be no use when they got to the park. And he'd probably be still in the car, sobbing, when they pulled her out. That wasn't particularly brave or dependable of him.

Abby gave him a final kick. "She said she'd kiss you when you pulled her out, right? At least keep it together long enough for _that_."

Tony finally lifted his head from his hands and took a few more calming breaths. When he spoke again, his voice had returned to almost its normal level and his hands had stopped shaking. He was Zen.

"I can do that."

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**Could I trouble you for a review? Thanks so much. Another two chapters will be up by NCIS day. **


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Okay, I didn't make it by NCIS Day, as promised. My plans were thwarted by several bottles of Merlot, inspiration for yet another story, and what I'm sure is the beginnings of swine flu (even if it has been a year since my last trip to the US). But here it is: a few days late, a few hundred words longer than expected, and hopefully good enough to keep you all interested.**

**Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Except for this bottle of Merlot.**

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Twenty minutes and countless broken road laws later, the rescue convoy sped through the narrow roads of Rock Creek Park. McGee and Ducky worked as a navigation team with the GPS and the map Abby had printed, and Gibbs swung the wheel around like an F1 driver on speed. They were heading to a section of the park that was used less by the public, and at this time of night would be almost deserted. In fact, they hadn't seen another car, jogger or cyclist in about a mile.

A final bridge, hill and corner, and McGee called out. "Okay, boss? Now we're going to have to do a little off-roading." He peered through the windshield and looked back to the GPS. "Aim for the break in trees on the left."

Gibbs aimed, and all three of them bounced around the cab of the truck when the tires hit a series of exposed tree roots and potholes. "Which direction?" he wanted to know.

McGee looked around and made a quick estimate. "We're looking at about 100 feet to the north-east."

Gibbs wasn't surprised that McGee's directions took them along the natural break in the trees. What they were driving on couldn't exactly be called a road, or even a trail. But it was the only way a car could move between the trees.

They came over a rise, and the headlights picked up tire tracks in the softer dirt. Thinking quickly, Gibbs moved as far to the right as he could to try to avoid disturbing them. If they belonged to whoever had dumped Ziva out here, they'd want plaster casts. He checked his mirror and was relieved to see Abby steer around them as well.

"Slow, slow, slow," McGee said. "We should be almost on top of her."

Gibbs hit the brakes hard enough to make all of them glad they were wearing seatbelts. His feet were on the ground almost before the engine had fully shut off. By the time he made it to the back of the truck, Tony was already there and pulling open the doors. Tony grabbed a shovel and a crowbar, and Gibbs took the remaining two shovels.

Noting that Abby's cell wasn't anywhere in sight, Gibbs dared to ask. "Lose phone reception?"

Tony glanced at him, with a tight jaw and scared eyes. "Dead battery."

"How long?"

"Fifteen minutes."

Enough small talk. They joined the others standing in the vehicles' headlights.

"Where is she?" Tony wanted to know.

"Should be within a couple of feet," McGee said. "No more than ten."

"Look for disturbed ground," Tony called as they all spread out. He looked around for tire tracks like they'd seen just a few feet back, figuring they would have driven Ziva as far as possible. When he had no luck, he pulled his cell phone out and tried to call her one more time. Speed dial number 1. He kicked at a suspicious-looking pile of leaves as he waited for the call to connect, then swore under his breath when her phone diverted straight to voicemail.

"Here!" Gibbs suddenly called from beyond the tree line.

Tony almost twisted an ankle when he spun around again and took off in a run towards Gibbs' voice. He covered the ground in just a few seconds and came upon Gibbs and McGee crouching beside a mound of leaves and dirt, about six feet long by three feet wide and one foot high. The three of them worked to clear off the leaves with their hands, finding the dirt beneath darker and damper than the earth around them.

"Ducky!" Tony called out as he stood to full height and gripped the shovel.

"How can I help?"

"We need more light. Swing the truck around."

Abby helped Ducky climb back through the trees towards the truck as the others prepared to dig. Tony took the far end of the mound, McGee the middle and Gibbs the other end. Gently at first, Tony pressed his shovel into the earth. Finding no resistance, he scooped out the dirt and swung it out to the front and right, narrowly missing McGee. Without a word, the junior agent jumped out of the way and switched position so that he was facing the same way as Tony.

Confident now that she wasn't only a foot or so under the surface and in danger of getting a blade in the face, Tony reared back and rammed the shovel deeper into the ground. Then he did it again. And again. His strikes were powered by every ounce of anger, frustration and fear he felt.

_Get rid of it now_, he told himself. _Because you're not going to lay it all on her when she gets out. You're _her_ support, DiNozzo. Don't you dare make her carry you tonight._

As the others dug, Abby helped Ducky prepare a patch of ground behind them with all the necessary equipment: a portable heart defibrillator, foil blanket, latex gloves, gauze, stethoscope, neck brace, air bag mask.

"She'll probably be okay, right?" Abby asked him when they crossed paths at the back of the truck. "I mean, Ziva's at, like, professional athlete levels of fitness. That's good, right?"

"It's certainly not bad," Ducky replied "She'd do better than any of us."

Abby knew Ducky meant for that to be comforting. But then she considered the 'us' Ducky was referring to: Ducky was nudging 70, Gibbs had been a smoker for 20 years, McGee was claustrophobic, Tony had crappy plague lungs, and Abby herself was not exactly at the peak of fitness. Suddenly, Ducky's comment was not that comforting. But Abby gave him a tight smile anyway and went back to bringing medical equipment out of the truck, effectively ending the conversation. She couldn't handle Ducky's brand of comfort right now.

The soundtrack for the next five minutes was a mash-up of metal on dirt, idling car engines and grunts of exertion. It didn't take long for the dust to clung to their clothes and faces, and sting their eyes. Muscles strained and backs felt like breaking, but none of them would dare consider taking a break. Three days of sore arms would be nothing compared with the years of guilt if Ziva didn't make it.

And then, three feet down, Tony's shovel struck something hard. Gibbs and McGee stopped their work and looked over. With his hopes rising, Tony gently tapped his shovel into the base of his hole. He was answered with a definite _thunk_. His head snapped up and he met Gibbs' eyes in surprise.

"I think I got her."

"Flashlight, Abby," Gibbs called over his shoulder, and he and McGee stepped over piles of dirt to crouch beside Tony.

Abby appeared between Tony and McGee and aimed the flashlight down. Tony used his shovel to scrape at the dirt at the bottom of the hole, and soon revealed what looked like a plank of wood.

"It's her!" Abby cried. "Ziva!"

There was no response.

"Keep going," Tony said.

McGee and Gibbs refocused their efforts at the edge of the hold Tony had made, while Tony grabbed the crowbar. He got down on his stomach to reach into the hole, and then, with as much care as he could, started punching a hole in the wood. Ziva needed fresh air—now.

He made a hole wide enough to fit the crowbar through, then threaded the hooked end through the hole and pulled up with all his strength. The wood did not immediately give way, so he changed his grip and yanked. That seemed to work better, so he did it over and over again until finally a chunk of wood about the size of his hand peeled back.

Again, Abby shone the torch down into the hole. Directly under it was a thick lock of dark brown curls.

"Ziva!" Tony and Abby yelled together.

Again, there was no response. No movement. Tony shoved the crowbar back into the hole again and yanked back on it. Another chunk of wood came free. Now the hole was about the size of a bread plate, but still they could only see her hair.

Tony handled Abby the crowbar, and pressed his chest flat to the ground as he pushed his hand through the hole and stretched to reach her. He found the side of her head, and then felt his way down to the side of her neck, right under her jaw. Then, he held his breath and prayed. For what felt like minutes, he felt nothing under her still-warm skin. And then, a pulse. He moved his fingers a fraction lower, trying to find the exact point of movement, and he felt it again. It was weak, and it was slow, but it was there.

"Thank you, God," he practically sobbed, and removed his hand. "She's alive! Can't tell if she's breathing, but there's a pulse."

He picked up his shovel again and joined McGee and Gibbs as they elongated the hole, spreading down towards where McGee had been digging just minutes before. The news gave them all another shot of energy, and they threw themselves into the task until they'd cleared the dirt from Tony's hole all the way down to McGee's.

Abby handed Tony the crowbar, and this time while he worked at pulling apart the wood, Abby picked up his shovel and started digging.

The bigger hole gave Tony more leverage, and he was able to pull the wood away more easily now. Soon, he'd pulled away enough to expose her head and almost down to her waist. He had thought he'd feel better as soon as he laid eyes on her, because then he'd know for sure that she was alive and real. In fact, the opposite was true. The sight of her small body, twisted and bound and still, made Tony want to be sick—until the anger rolled through is gut. Whoever did this to her, whoever tried to take away her fire and pride, was going to regret it. Because this team would find them. And then Ziva would show them exactly why she was probably the worst person in the world to fuck with.

"Duck, I need a knife!" he called out. Carefully, Tony lowered himself into the hole, bracing his feet as wide as possible to as not to put his weight on the weakened wood. Ducky handed him a three-inch blade, and then he crouched down and reached forward to slice the bloodied plastic cuffs that bound Ziva's wrists.

He handed the knife back, wiped the sweat of his brow with his forearm and looked up at Gibbs and McGee. "Let's try to ease her out."

As Gibbs and McGee got into position, Tony eased her left arm forward to cross over her stomach, then tilted her onto her back. Gibbs reached down to help him pull her shoulders up, so she was almost sitting upright, and then the three of them lifted her limp body up through the splintered wood, stopping every few seconds to manoeuvre her clothes and bare arms around the jagged edges of the box. Abby rushed forward to help McGee steady Ziva's weight, and she almost yelped when she felt how cold and clammy her friend's skin was. McGee caught her eye and shook his head, and Abby kept her mouth shut. Everyone was thinking the same thing, and there was no need to say it aloud.

They group finally got her completely above ground, and McGee quickly carried her over to Ducky's makeshift battlefield hospital and carefully set her down on her back. Gibbs scrambled out of the hole and then helped Abby pull Tony out after him. The four of them had done all they could do for the moment. Now, it was Ducky's turn.

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**I just had a chat with Chapter 6, and it told me that it can't wait to be read by you all. So why don't you click through?**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. **

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Ducky wasted no time in putting Ziva into position and beginning mouth-to-mouth ventilation, as the other four formed a protective semi-circle around them. If Ducky felt any stage fright at performing his work while his audience was so near, he didn't show it. As he knelt over Ziva and forced air into her lungs, his face held an almost serene expression, as if he'd already made peace with whatever the outcome would be.

The same could not be said for the rest of the team. As each second passed without Ziva making a single move on her own, their own breathing became shallower, until finally every one of them held their breath. It was as if they'd all come to the same irrational conclusion that there was only enough oxygen in the area for one person, and they were all prepared to give up their lot for Ziva.

Tony didn't think he could have breathed if he'd wanted to. Once again he was on the verge of a panic attack, and his chest was stabbing with such intensity that drawing breath literally hurt. Abby clung to his arm with all her strength, and he held a white-knuckle grip on her hand. It wasn't immediately clear who was comforting who, but Tony didn't think that either of them was doing a particularly good job.

Abby did, however, manage to hold Tony up when Ziva finally inhaled on her own and Tony went weak in relief. Beside them, Gibbs folded at the waist as he let out his lungful of air and braced his hands on his knees, and McGee was so relieved he actually clapped Gibbs on the shoulder.

Tony regained his footing and a smidge of composure. He quickly pecked Abby's cheek in thanks, and looked over to the beaming McGee.

"Probie, call a bus, will you?"

McGee was happy to follow the order, and he wandered a few feet away to make the call.

"Be calm, my dear," Ducky was saying to Ziva, and Tony knelt to help him with the foil blanket. "Don't try to talk. We'll get you out of this ghastly place." He put a breathing mask on her, and then reached for his stethoscope.

Tony felt Gibbs and Abby leaning over his shoulder as he looked down at Ziva. He was surprised by how alert she seemed, with her eyes wide open and a smile tugging at her lips as she drew in shallow but steady breaths. He snaked his hand under the blanket to grip her hand, and the little squeeze she gave him brought out one of his biggest smiles.

"So. What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" he quipped.

Ziva's smile grew and she attempted a laugh, which set off a small coughing fit. Gibbs smacked his head lightly, even while Abby hugged his back awkwardly.

"Don't make her laugh, DiNozzo," Gibbs said gently.

"I'd try, but it would be impossible."

Gibbs ignored him. "Welcome back, Ziver."

Ziva nodded, and then winced as the cool metal of Ducky's stethoscope made contact with the skin of her chest. She made no move to stop him, though.

McGee's head joined the circle. "Ambulance is on its way. Shouldn't be long. Hey, Ziva!"

"Tim! She's not allowed to talk," Abby scolded.

"I didn't ask her to!"

Abby narrowed her eyes. "Don't you take that tone of voice with me."

McGee frowned. "What tone?"

"Children," Gibbs cut in.

"Children indeed," Ducky admonished. "All of you, back up and stop fighting. Ziva needs her air."

Everyone but Tony stepped back quickly. He looked at Ziva and cocked his head to the side. _Yes, they're crazy. But they're family. And you're stuck with them_.

"What now, boss?" Gibbs asked from behind Tony's shoulder.

Tony pulled his eyes away from Ziva to look over his shoulder. Good thing Gibbs remembered there was an investigation going on here. "You and McGee, shoot the scene. Make sure you get those tracks, and call in some more hands."

Gibbs nodded, his expression assuring Tony he was doing okay, then smacked McGee's shoulder. "Come on, Probie. You're shooting."

"Uh, Tony usually shoots," they heard McGee say as he and Gibbs walked back to the truck.

"Well, Tony's busy," came Gibbs' reply. "And I hate that damn camera."

"What can I do?" Abby asked.

"Help Gibbs with measurements," Tony said.

"On it!" Abby returned enthusiastically.

Tony watched her navigate over the bumpy and slippery ground in four-inch platforms before looking back at Ziva. He was surprised to find her staring at him intently, but shrugged it off.

Ducky was gently feeling around the back of Ziva's head when Tony shifted to lie down in the dirt next to her. He gave her a big smile that he hoped hid how much of an emotional basketcase he was right now, and went back to what he'd been doing all night: keeping her mind occupied.

"So. You checked out on me in the middle of a thought-provoking discussion on _The Bourne Identity_," he reminded her. "If you'd hung in there for a few more minutes, you would have heard the bombshell I was about to drop." He leaned in and looked at her with complete seriousness. "I'm actually a spy myself. For the Russians."

Ziva snorted, and Ducky sighed. "Anthony. The Cold War has been over for decades."

"That's just what we want you to think, Duck."

"You have an amazing cover, Tony," Ziva wheezed.

He smiled at her for playing along with him, but felt Ducky wasn't so pleased.

"Ziva, I told you not to speak," he reminded her firmly.

Ziva shot the ME an apologetic look, while Tony backed him up.

"Listen to him, Ziva," he warned. "You don't want to get Ducky mad. He's actually Scottish Mafia. It's a little-known fact, but he'll headbutt you back to the fifteenth century if you don't do what he says."

Ducky sighed again. "Oh, Tony."

Tony gave him a brief smile before looking out over the scene to see how Gibbs and McGee were doing. Abby was helping Gibbs with measurements while McGee took close-up shots of the hole. Already, just looking at it made Tony's skin crawl, and he gritted his teeth against the wave of 'what if' panic that rolled over him.

"Tony?"

His gaze dropped quickly to meet Ziva's eyes. She had defiantly pulled the mask down and was looking at him as though he'd been the one in the box all night. "Are you okay?"

Tony had to fight the urge to cling to her. _You're _her_ support_, he reminded himself again. _Don't fall apart on her_.

"I will be," he said, almost believably. He touched her cheek gently before slipping the mask back over her mouth, effectively shutting her up. She held his gaze though, and it spoke volumes.

Something had changed tonight. In trying to keep her calm and reassured, Tony had bared himself to her. He'd showed his hand, hoping that his unspoken love for her would give her reason enough to hold on. And hold on she had, with faith in his promise to find her. She had realised earlier that night that she wanted to live, because of her friends and because of Tony. It was fitting, then, that Tony was the reason she _had_ lived.

They both knew that after tonight, they had something very important to talk about.

Ducky continued to work silently beside them, checking Ziva's heart rate, listening for any sign of fluid in her lungs or air in her chest, and checking for life-threatening injuries. He was not oblivious to the silent conversation flowing between the partners. In fact, it reminded him of a time in Paris with Gibbs and Jenny. Back then he'd made the mistake of trying to fill the silence with a story about Greek mythology. Tonight, he just let them be.

"You know what?" Tony finally said. "I think I've run out of stories." Ziva shot him a look of utter disbelief that he knew he deserved.

He lifted his eyes to look out at the scene, seemingly to check on the team's progress, but in fact because he just couldn't keep talking. Right now, all he could think of to say were declarations that shouldn't be made whilst lying in the dirt within earshot of a cranky ex-Marine with a gun on his hip.

So instead, he filled the silence with the first song that came to mind. "Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe."

Ziva's eyes went wide at the soft verse that came out of his mouth, and she cut a look towards Ducky. The doctor was staring at Tony with just as much surprise as Ziva felt, before dropping his eyes to her. Ducky gave her an affectionate, knowing look and patted her shoulder gently before going back to his work.

Ordinarily, when Tony broke into song in the field or in the office (and that wasn't as uncommon as people would think) Ziva would roll her eyes and demand to know what the hell Tony was doing, making it clear that she thought he was being an idiot. But tonight was far from ordinary. She recognised this as Tony, exhausted and at the end of his emotional rope, but still trying to do whatever he could to keep her calm and focused. And, to be fair, his voice was actually pretty good.

God damn, she was in love with him.

"Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind, possessing and caressing me."

Tony was barely listening to himself. He was too busy worrying about how long it was taking for the ambulance to arrive, and whether the asshole who buried his partner was going to come back any time soon. He wondered what he'd do if the bad guys stumbled out of the woods and onto their crime scene. Would he arrest them or just bypass the justice system and shoot them dead?

"Nothing's gonna change my world, nothing's gonna change my world."

He looked down at Ziva, who was giving him a small, charmed smile under her mask. Tony thought it best not to answer his own question, and returned his gaze to the scene.

As Ziva kept watching him, she fought the emotional walls that her psyche was automatically trying to build. Instead, she tried focusing on what she'd begun to realise while underground. She felt like she belonged here in DC, and she couldn't stand the thought of it being taken away from her.

The thought of what she would have missed out on had she died brought tears to her eyes, and that was enough to confirm that she was not the same woman who had strutted into NCIS four years ago. That woman was detached. She did not yearn to interweave her personal life with her new colleagues'. In fact, she barely had a personal life. She lived for Mossad, 24-hours-a-day, and that was that. The lifestyle had not bothered her, and she did not waste time thinking of the things in life she was missing out on. She had a mission, and she would not let anything distract her. She had no issue with the fact that she may have to die to be successful.

Now, Ziva was not as prepared to die as she had been. She was still on call for NCIS 24-hours-a-day, but that just meant that she was surrounded by her friends. She was still expected to give 110 per cent of herself to a mission, but now it was in order to help people rather than to assassinate them. At NCIS, she just felt more…human.

By the time she returned to Israel last summer, it had been clear to Ziva that her allegiance had shifted. At the time, and even for a while after she had returned to the US, the change had confused her. She'd felt off balance and scattered as she tried to work out who exactly she was. Her colleagues in Israel had thought she had gone soft. _Ziva_ had thought she had gone soft. But once she accepted the change in her allegiance, she knew for sure she had landed in the right place. She was NCIS.

And being NCIS meant concerning yourself with the personal lives of your colleagues. It meant becoming attached to them, and loving them unconditionally—even with their myriad of quirks. Ziva found herself wishing for good things to happen to them, and wanting to see them succeed. She realised that she didn't want to let go of them. She didn't want her life with them to be over and done with. She wanted to hear more of Ducky's stories. She wanted to see McGee step out of Tony's shadow and come into his own. She wanted to watch Abby find whatever it was in life she was looking for. She wanted for Gibbs to find some peace. And as for Tony, she didn't care what he did, as long as she was in his life every day.

That alone would make her happy.

"Jai Guru Deva, om," Tony finished up, finally meeting her eyes again. He did not look pleased to see her crying. "Ziva, are you okay? Ducky! Ducky, help me. I think she's in pain."

Ziva shook her head as Ducky leaned over her and again stuck the cold stethoscope down her shirt.

"Can you breathe, dear?"

"Yes," she replied, her voice muffled by the mask. "I'm fine. I'm just…thinking."

Tony sighed and shook his head. "Okay. You can do the thinking. That's really your area of expertise in this partnership, anyway."

She pulled the mask down. "I thought you said hitting people was my area of expertise."

"That too."

"So what's _your's_, Tony?"

"Um, leaping to wild, if not brilliant, conclusions and charming the pants off of people." He threw her a dazzling smile, as if to prove the point.

There was no point trying to resist that damn smile, and Ziva was in even less of a position to try right now. She laughed outright for him, as the faint sound of sirens echoed through the park.

"About damn time," Tony said.

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**Coming up next, another Tony/Abby conversation. Damn, I love writing them. Look out for it in the next few days.  
Once again, thanks for all the wonderful reviews you've submitted. There's nothing quite like the buzz you get from opening your inbox and seeing it full of responses and alerts. Keep 'em coming, and I'll keep the chapters coming. **


	7. Chapter 7

A**/N: I had this blocked and pieces of key dialogue written ages ago, but a crazy-busy week at work foiled my plans to finish this up within a week. Now the race is on to finish by next weekend. Thanks to all who are keeping up with it!**

**I should have mentioned in the last chapter that the song Tony was quietly singing was Across the Universe by The Beatles—seemed somewhat fitting for where Tony's head was at. **

**Disclaimer: They're still not mine.**

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Before Tony had joined NCIS, he'd never given that much thought to his position on hospitals. He knew people, like Abby, who had hated them all their lives for what they represented. Who had spent time as kids visiting sick relatives, all the while thinking they were going to get better before losing them in the end. Tony had been one of those kids, but he'd never placed the blame on his mom's illness on the hospital. The hospital was where her pain would get a little easier to cope with. The hospital was where the bones in his arm were reset after he found out he actually couldn't fly. The hospital was where his cousin Gina had been born, bringing smiles to everyone's faces. How could the hospital be a bad place?

Now, Tony understood. The hospital was where you waited—and waited and waited—for news on how your boss was doing after he got blown up on a boat. It was where you were isolated when you had the plague. It was where they took your partner after she'd been shot between the eyes, even though it was clear she was already dead. It was where the woman you accidentally fell in love with worked before it all went to hell. It was where your current partner, the one you fell in love with probably before the other one, got taken to after she'd almost suffocated to death while asking you for help.

Hospitals, specifically the waiting areas, sucked.

Tony slumped down a little further in the plastic chair he'd been parked on for the last hour, but kept his eyes on the double doors that led to the emergency rooms. Sooner or later, Ducky was going to come out and tell him that Ziva was fine and all she needed was a good night's sleep. Then Tony would call Gibbs with an update, they'd make brief comments about what good news it was while they both tried to pretend that they hadn't actually been as shitscared as they'd seemed, and they'd move on with the investigation. Then he'd drive Ziva home, check every corner of her house for intruders, and sit outside her door all night with his gun cocked and ready to fire. Easy.

"You okay now?" Abby asked tiredly from beside him. All the adrenaline from earlier in the night had left her, and she was as slumped into her seat as Tony was, using his shoulder as a pillow.

"I was always okay," Tony replied with trademark bravado.

He heard Abby snort. "Okay. But you know how you were totally _not_ okay tonight?" she tried. "How's that going?"

Tony rested his cheek on her head. "It's going fine. She's out, she's safe, so I'm okay. Are you okay?"

There was a pause before Abby gave him her honest answer. "I'm sick of always worrying about you guys."

"Me too," Tony admitted.

"Can't you all fight crime without going outside all the time?"

"Not until funding gets approved for that army of robots we've been hoping for."

Abby gently punched his thigh. When she spoke again, her voice was much kinder. "You did really good tonight, Tony." When he didn't reply, she rushed to explain things. "You know that, right? What you did for Ziva—how you kept talking to her and kept her calm, I mean. You should be proud. I mean, you should be proud of getting her out of the hole, too. But if I had to keep talking to someone in that situation and had to make them believe that it was going to be okay?" She shook her head. "No way I could have done that. But you kept it together, Tony. And you kept Ziva together. You were a rock star tonight."

Tony thought for a moment. "I honestly can't remember a single thing that came out of my mouth," he said honestly.

"The adrenaline's messing with you," Abby said with a smile. "Don't worry. You didn't tell her anything embarrassing."

That gave Tony a moment of relief. Until he considered the source. His idea of embarrassing could vary greatly from Abby's at times. No point worrying about it now, though.

"Thanks for going hardass on me before when I was about to have a panic attack," he said.

"Anytime."

He turned his head to press a kiss to her forehead. "We'll go to the movies next weekend."

Abby smirked. She seriously doubted that Tony would venture more than two steps away from Ziva for the next week. "Sure."

She lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up straighter as she tried to stretch out her back. She tried to fold herself so that her knees were tented and her heels were on the edge of the seat, but her four-inch platforms made it impossible. She turned towards Tony and crossed her legs instead, ignoring the small, amused smile on his face.

"So," she began, gearing up to kick his ass again. "You're not going to wait any longer, right?"

Tony rolled his shoulders. "For what?"

"To tell Ziva you love her," Abby said bluntly. "You're going to tell her as soon as you see her, right?"

Tony's head whipped around to her so fast Abby swore she felt the displacement of air. For a moment they locked eyes, and Abby was sure he was going to be honest with her. But then he plastered on a big, fake Tony smile and she knew she'd have to beat it out of him.

"What are you talking about?" he chuckled. "You're crazy when you're tired, you know that? Is that why you always have so much Caf-Pow?"

Abby rolled her eyes. "Okay, now that you've gotten the obligatory denial out of your system, you can cut the crap."

Tony stared back at her silently, his smile fading fast. She grabbed his arm and shook him.

"Stop wasting time, Tony," she practically begged.

Tony assessed the situation quickly. Abby was on to him. Abby loved being right. Abby could probably dig up some of Tony's juvenile antics from his past and hold it over his head until she was satisfied he was telling her the truth. Abby was also probably the only person he could be 100 per cent straight with and not worry about her using it against him. He sighed and gave in.

"Now's not a good time."

Abby threw her hands up. "There's _never_ a good time, Tony. Sometimes you just have to jump and trust that you'll fall in the right place."

He shook his head. "Emotions are running too high," he tried to explain. "I don't want to be the guy who only comes clean because he almost lost the chance. I want to be the guy who comes clean because…" He tried to think of how to explain it honestly. "Because of nothing important. Because she was just in my life that day. Because she said something that made me laugh, or flicked her hair in a way that made me want to kiss her. When I tell her, I want her to know I'm doing it because I love her. Not because I almost lost her."

"Aw, Tony," Abby sighed.

He swallowed and added, "Besides, if I come clean tonight, I can't guarantee that the adrenaline won't make me bust her out of here and take her to live in a fortress on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific, guarded by man-eating sharks and motion-detecting uzis."

Abby absorbed the scenario. "Okay, tonight's probably not a good night, then. But soon, Tony."

"Yes. Soon," he promised.

After a beat of silence, she asked, "You've out a lot of thought into the deserted island thing, haven't you?"

Tony nodded. "Yes. I have."

"You'd need cable," Abby pointed out.

"Definitely."

They shared a smile, and then looked up to see Ducky coming their way. They both sat up straighter as the ME regarded them with a kind smile.

"What's the news, Duck?" Tony asked.

"It's good," Ducky replied. "Ziva has a slight concussion, and some nasty bruising around her ribs, but nothing that requires more assistance than some hospital-grade painkillers. The drugs used to tranquillise her should be out of her system by morning, and she's breathing well. Her blood pressure is good. They'll keep her in overnight as a precaution, though."

Tony and Abby stared at him in silence. Sure, it was the scenario they'd both been hoping for, but when it came to hospitals, how often did you get what you were hoping for?

"That's it?" Abby asked.

Ducky frowned as he misunderstood her question. "It's very good news, Abigail," he spelt out.

Tony and Abby quickly got to their feet, wearing matching smiles.

"Thanks, Ducky. Can we sneak in?" Tony asked.

Ducky gestured over his shoulder towards the hallway. "Yes, of course. This way."

As Abby grabbed Ducky's hand and started skipping along beside him, Tony pulled out his cell and dialled Gibbs to give him an update. As expected, they both played down how worried they'd been, and focused the conversation on the investigation.

"I've had three teams go over the scene, but it's pretty clean, aside from the tracks," Gibbs said. "Right now a backhoe's lifting out the rest of the dirt from the hole. I'll have them send it to Abby, along with the plastic cuffs and Ziva's cell."

Tony nodded as he watched Ducky and Abby enter Ziva's room. Sparing no thought for Ziva's ribs, Abby launched herself at her friend and wrapped her arms around her.

"Abigail," Ducky admonished.

From the doorway, Tony caught Ziva's gaze. She dramatically widened her eyes over Abby's shoulder for him, and Tony sent her a megawatt smile. Ziva returned a smaller, but no less genuine one.

"You send someone over to the park yet?" Tony asked. "They might've left something behind."

"Thompson's team is over there now. We'll head over soon."

"Thanks, Gibbs," he said, intending to wind up the conversation.

"You work out why they left Ziva with her phone yet?" Gibbs asked.

Tony stepped out of the room and kept his voice down so as not to upset Ziva. "They didn't want to kill her," he replied. "They wanted to scare her. Or us, assuming they knew who she was."

When Gibbs didn't reply, Tony challenged, "You got a better idea?"

"No. I agree with you," Gibbs replied.

Tony rolled his eyes and threw his hand up at the lack of communication skills his boss sometimes possessed. "Alright, well finish up at the scene and we'll get to the who and the why of the puzzle tomorrow. Tell Probie I want him to go over every millisecond of that footage from the park."

"I'll let him know."

The beat of silence that followed was long enough for Tony to wonder if Gibbs had hung up on him. He was about to hang up himself when Gibbs voice came back over the line.

"Good job, Tony."

Tony tried to ignore the shot of pride that Gibbs' approval gave him. Surely it shouldn't matter right now. "Thanks, boss."

"Tell Ziva to rest," he said.

Tony hung up and headed back to Ziva's room, his 'all is well' act already in place for his final performance of the night.

_Once more, with feeling_, he thought to himself.

* * *

**Was that too sappy? I hope that wasn't too sappy. Chapters 8 and 9 are up now if you want to click on through.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything.**

* * *

When the doctor told Ziva that she would be released in the morning, she had assumed that Tony would be the one to show up early with clothes and a breakfast burrito, ready to sign her out and drive her to work. She'd been practising what she would say to him since she'd woken at 0500, and now, three hours later, she was ready. So it came as somewhat of a disappointment when Abby tottered through the door with one of Ziva's old Mossad rucksacks.

"Morning, Ziva!" Abby chirped. "Did you sleep okay?"

She wasn't Tony, but Ziva was still happy to see her friend. "Yes, Abby. I slept very well. Thank you."

Abby swung the bag onto the foot of Ziva's bed. "You still okay to leave this morning? Or will I have to bust you out of here in the laundry cart?"

"No, I can leave," Ziva said.

Abby smiled brightly and gestured at the bag. "Got some clothes for you." She paused to make a face. "I assume. I haven't looked. Tony packed it then brought it down to me this morning."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he asked me to pick you up," Abby explained. "Cuz he's with the agency head doctor."

Ziva frowned, not following the colloquialism.

"Counsellor," Abby said. "He said he got a message last night that he had mandatory counselling this morning."

Ziva's frown deepened as she sat up and pulled the bag into her lap. "From whom?"

Abby shrugged and sat on the end of Ziva's bed. "Didn't say. I assume it came from Vance. I can't imagine that Gibbs would put any of us through it. He doesn't believe in any of that stuff."

Ziva unzipped the bag and saw her favourite jeans and a green shirt she'd caught Tony looking down the front of several times. "Why would Tony need counselling?" she asked. "Aside from the obvious issues he's always needed counselling for."

Abby didn't quite manage to catch her snort. "Um, maybe because he spent last night running around DC, trying to keep his best friend from dying or going insane? That kind of thing can screw with a person's head, Ziva. And their heart. And their fists." She shook her head. "You should see the dash of his car…"

She trailed off when she saw the worry in Ziva's eyes, then tried to backpeddle. "I mean, he's fine. It's just a thing that he's being forced to do."

Ziva nodded slowly and looked into the bag again. "I see. Just give me a minute to change and we can head back to the Navy Yard."

Abby twisted her lips. "Um, Gibbs and Tony made it very clear to me that I was to take you right home."

Ziva dropped her shoulders and rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Oh for the love of…Abby, I am fine. The doctor said I was fine. There is no reason for me to not go to work today."

Abby looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "They said that you would try to talk your way around it, but that I was to remain strong."

Ziva narrowed her eyes slightly and lowered her voice. "Abby, who are you more afraid of? Me, or Tony and Gibbs?"

Abby swallowed. "You," she admitted.

Ziva nodded. "So just give me five minutes, and then we will leave, yes?"

Abby gave in. "Okay. But can we at least tell them that I _did_ drive you home, and then you came in on your own?"

"That would be acceptable."

* * *

The bullpen was empty when Ziva walked in just after 0900. Resisting the urge to scream over being ditched, she sat heavily in her chair, then immediately regretted it when a sharp pain stabbed through her ribs. Ziva gritted her teeth and rubbed the area. What she wouldn't give to find out how she'd received that injury.

She booted up her computer and ripped the Post-It in Tony's handwriting (_Go home, Ziva_) off her monitor. While she waited for the log on screen to appear, she dialled Gibbs.

"Didn't DiNozzo tell you not to come in?" Gibbs answered.

"Tony is not my boss," Ziva replied, controlling her voice. She was starting to get pissed at being handled with child's gloves. "Where are you? I can come help you."

"We got it, Ziva," Gibbs told her. "Go home. Get some rest. We'll keep you updated."

Ziva clenched her jaw. "You cannot expect me to sit at home and do nothing," she argued. "I was buried, Gibbs!"

"And that's why we want you to go home and rest," Gibbs spelt out. "I'll be in the office in 20 minutes. You better not be there when I arrive."

Ziva weighed up the value in continuing to argue the point, and decided it would not get her anywhere now.

"Gibbs?"

"Yah?"

"Did you send Tony to counselling?"

There was a pause, and Ziva had an image of Gibbs shaking his head in irritation on the other end of the line. "Nope." The line went dead.

Not willing to give up yet, Ziva immediately dialled McGee. He picked up after the first ring.

"You know Gibbs is standing right next to me, right?" he said when he answered.

"Damn it!" Ziva yelled, and hung up. She should have guessed. With Tony otherwise occupied, Gibbs would need a substitute number one.

Her log on screen finally came up, and Ziva entered her password so hard her fingers hurt. Stupid Gibbs letting stupid Tony tell her what to do. Stupid McGee for going along with it. Just because they were her family and she'd decided that she loved them all didn't mean that she wasn't ready to pummel them for keeping her off the case. She was fine—why couldn't they just believe her?

She pulled up her email, and sorted the important from the stuff she could immediately delete. All staff notices went straight to the trash, as did an email from a teacher she'd met on a Smithsonian tour three weeks ago. She opened an email from Tony sent at 1821 last night with no subject line (typical of Tony). The body of the email read, _If you'd hung around just five more minutes…_ Ziva opened the attached jpeg and laughed out loud at the photo of McGee making some kind of monster face behind Gibbs' back. She added it to her personal folder.

The last email she came across had been sent at 0540 that morning from Vance's office. It was directing her to attend a mandatory counselling session to discuss the events of the previous night. She was to contact Vance's assistant as soon as possible on her first day back at work, who would then organise a session with the agency counsellor on her behalf.

Ziva's blood ran cold. Before NCIS, she had made it through eight years as a Mossad operative, two years training in the Israeli army, and five more years before that being trained by her father and brother. Never once in all that time had she been required to discuss how she felt about the things she was trained to do, and frankly she was not interested into delving into those feelings now. She hit delete. She would not be contacting Vance's assistant to make that appointment. If they wanted her to go, they'd have to literally drag her in kicking and screaming.

No sooner had she trashed the email for good did Ziva hear Vance's voice from above. She glanced up at the walkway outside MTAC, and saw the man himself chatting and laughing with another man in a boring brown suit. Acting on a ridiculous impulse, Ziva slid off her chair and crouched to the ground, hoping that the Director had not seen her. She counted to 10 and then peered over the top of her desk. Vance was gone, and Ziva made a decision. She would rather spend the day at home than spend it dodging Vance and arguing with Gibbs.

* * *

**Chapter 9 is up now, where the action picks up a bit again. **


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I haven't managed to wrangle the owning rights to this show since the beginning of my last chapter. So it's still not mine.**

* * *

Tony had a throbbing headache. As if spending the entire morning talking to some woman he'd never met before about how he worked with his partner wasn't bad enough, he now had the pleasure of listening to Abby and McGee talk him through all the evidence they had. He wanted to call Ziva and see how she was doing, but the counsellor's words—specifically those about co-dependency—were weighing on his mind. He had to find five minutes on his own to decide whether he cared that he was dependant on Ziva before he called her. But he didn't have five minutes.

Before following Gibbs into Abby's lab, he took a quick pull on her Caf-Pow and prayed for energy.

"What have you got, Abs?" he called, beating Gibbs to the punch. Gibbs turned to shoot a warning look at him for stealing his material. Tony just smiled.

"We've got plenty," Abby replied, taking the Caf-Pow with a smile. "Let's start with Ziva's cell phone."

McGee hit a few keys and a list of phone numbers came up on Abby's monitor. Tony recognised his own cell number on the list perhaps a dozen times on that page alone. Co-dependant? Maybe.

"This is a list of all the numbers that dialled Ziva in the last two days," Abby said. "The last six numbers came in between the time Ziva was taken from the park, and the time we found her."

McGee highlighted the six numbers, then pulled up another set of records. "This is Abby's cell phone record for last night," he said. "Ziva's call came in at 8:53pm. But check out Ziva's incoming calls. She'd got a missed call at 8:31pm."

"While she was buried," Abby said. "And the same number comes up at 9:04, and 9:37, and 10:16."

"While she was talking to Tony on Abby's cell," McGee added. "Four missed calls from the same number. Hung up before it went to voicemail."

"The next three calls coming in are from me and Tony," Abby said. "Well, they were all from Tony, but he was using my cell, and then his own, and…You know what I mean. And then one more, same number, at a quarter to 12."

"So who was tyring to call her?" Tony asked.

"We don't know," McGee said, then rephrased at the twin glares her got from Gibbs and Tony. "We don't know _yet_. It came from a pre-paid cell that has only ever made five calls."

"The ones last night to Ziva," Abby said.

Tony glanced at Gibbs, and Gibbs gave him a small nod. Tony took that as permission to theorise.

"So whoever took her wanted to talk to her. Or, they wanted to know if she was dead." He swallowed. "Why keep calling after the first few times, though?"

"To make sure?" McGee offered.

Gibbs shook his head. "No. Tony's right. They wanted to talk to her."

"The first time, she was still knocked out from the drugs," Tony said. "The next three times, she was talking to me. The last time, her cell was dead and she was out of the hole anyway."

Gibbs leaned over McGee and squinted at the monitor. "So when will you know who bought the phone?"

Abby and McGee shared a look, and it was decided Abby would answer. It was unlikely that Tony or Gibbs would hit her. "Well, we won't. Pre-paid cell means no user details. But we're working on finding out where the calls originated from, which will help strengthen our case when we find the bad guys through other means."

Tony and Gibbs stared at her. She cleared her throat. "Um, I checked for prints on the phone as well. They all came back as Ziva's, except one which was an eight point match for Tony."

"I did try to grab her phone yesterday," Tony confirmed.

"Why?" Gibbs wanted to know. Not because it would help the case, but because he'd recognised Tony's number a dozen times on Ziva's records too. All signs were pointing towards the impending annihilation of Rule 12.

Tony shrugged and deflected the question with a laugh. "Who can remember? That was ages ago." He looked at Abby pointedly. "What else, Abs?"

"I ran the plastic cuffs," she said. "The blood was Ziva's. The fibres mostly matched her clothes, but I did find one that you'd expect to find on the floor of a car."

"Carpet?" Gibbs asked.

Abby nodded. "Yep. I'm still running comparisons against makes and models of SUVs, but I'll be able to tell you what kind it came from by the end of the day."

"Why SUVs?" Tony asked.

With a little flourish of her hands, Abby pointed to McGee. McGee pulled up surveillance footage of Washington Park from the night before.

"Because," he said, as he found the right spot in the tape, "we have footage that is most likely Ziva being bundled into a late model SUV at 7:33pm."

"Most likely?" Gibbs and Tony said in unison.

McGee shot Abby a look that the others didn't see, then hit the spacebar to run the footage at normal speed.

"This is Ziva the first time the camera picks her up as she enters the park."

Tony peered at the snowy footage. "Can't you do something about the quality?"

"I did," McGee gritted out. "This is the cleaned copy."

Abby put her finger on the screen. "But look, Tony. That's definitely Ziva."

Tony nodded. He recognised the running style. Next to him, Gibbs was still squinting. "Yeah, that's her," he said for Gibbs' benefit.

McGee forwarded the tape 20 minutes and the vision showed a different area of the park. "The surveillance system is pretty run down. There are a lot of cameras that don't work, so there are plenty of blind spots. But it did catch this."

The four of them watched as Ziva jogged into view, then suddenly grabbed at her neck as if in pain. Tony's hands tightened around the table edge as a big guy, about Tony's height but considerably beefier, came up behind Ziva and made a grab for her. Ziva spun on wobbly legs and tried to push away before spinning again. The guy got a hand on the back of her jacket and Ziva wriggled out of it, then got two more wobbly steps away before the guy picked up a discarded fence pailling and smacked her across the back of the head. After that, Ziva went down like a rag doll. The guy picked up something from the ground and shoved it in his pocket, then drew Ziva into his arms and carried her off down the path.

Tony swallowed a few times, trying to keep the vomit down. "Where does he take her?"

"I haven't been able to track them past the next camera," McGee said quietly. "There are four exists to the park, and only three have working cameras. They didn't show up on any of them, so they must've gone out the fourth."

"The one on the east side," Abby said, much more subdued now than she had been just a minute ago. "I pulled up the closest traffic camera just down the street from the exit." She hit a few keys and another set of video shots came up. She zoomed in on an SUV parked just outside the park. "This is from two minutes after she was taken."

Tony and Gibbs again squinted to see a guy with the same build carrying a person-sized something in his arms to the rear of an SUV where another guy, taller but much thinner, was waiting with the hatch open. The first guy put Ziva in the back and then, after some fiddling around, they both moved back, closed the hatch, and got into the front of the SUV.

"Licence plate?" Gibbs barked, just as Tony opened his mouth to say the same thing.

"Tape's too degraded and it's recording from too far away," Abby said apologetically. "All we can make out is an R, and either an O or zero. I'm running it."

"You track them?" Tony asked.

"All the way through the city, and towards Rock Creek Park," McGee said. "But when they turn into residential areas, we lose them."

"One of those cameras has to have a better shot than this one," Tony said, pointing at the screen.

"No front licence plate," McGee said. "And the rear plate is obscured with a lot of dirt."

Tony worked it all through. "So, basically, we have a cell phone number we can't trace," he ticked off on his fingers, "a single fibre to what could be carpet in an SUV, crappy footage of the attack where we can't see the guy's face, and one digit on a licence plate."

Abby looked at him with sad, guilty eyes. "We're trying, Tony. I promise."

Tony covered his face with his hands before he yelled. He had no doubt that Abby and McGee had busted their asses to get this much together, and it wasn't their fault that they couldn't fid evidence where there wasn't any to find.

"Somebody call Parks and Recreation and make a formal complaint," he ordered through his hands.

"The tracks from the scene," Gibbs said. "Were they from an SUV?"

"Yes," McGee said. "But they're a generic brand. The car didn't come off the production line with them. They would've been fitted later."

With his face still in his hands, Tony said, "But they'd only fit certain makes of SUVs, right?"

"Yes," McGee confirmed. "Currently about 200 makes and models."

Tony's shoulders slumped.

"Bring up the footage of the attack again," Gibbs said.

Tony felt his heart rate speed up and nausea roll through his stomach. Did they really have to watch it again? He took a few quiet, deep breaths and looked up again. McGee cued the footage and let it play. As soon as Ziva grabbed at her neck, Gibbs pointed at the screen.

"Freeze there."

They all stared at the still footage, trying to see what Gibbs could see. Finally, he nodded confidently.

"I'd put money on our shooter having some kind of sniper training."

Three heads whipped around to him.

"Why?" Tony asked.

"That's a hard shot he made. In the dark from probably 50 feet, through trees. And it was windy last night." Gibbs tapped his neck. "But he got her right where he wanted to. "

"A Gunnery Sergeant?" McGee asked. "Could this be about an old case of ours?"

Tony and Gibbs looked at each other as they both weighed it up. Right now, it was as good a place to start as any.

"Probie, stay here and help Abby," Tony said. "We're gonna start looking for disgruntled ex-cons and family members."

* * *

**A big shout out to Queen Elizabeth II for the long weekend Australia's having right now. If it weren't for Her Maj, I wouldn't have gotten three chapters up today, plus another two almost done that I'll post tomorrow. Cheers!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Yay! People are still following this! Hang in there, guys. We're in the home stretch.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

* * *

With a heavy heart and weight on his shoulders, Tony stepped into the elevator with Gibbs and started thinking of names they could put on the possible suspect list. His head spun at just how long the list could be, but if they focused in the first instance on cases that could be related back to gunnery sergeants, it should narrow the search to something more manageable.

Gibbs hit the button for the bullpen, and as the elevator rose he decided that now was a good time to check on his agent's state of mind.

"How did this morning go?" he asked.

Tony stared straight ahead as a ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I have competing issues with women," he announced. "While I crave their attention, company and approval, I am quick to turn away from them before they can hurt me. It probably has something to do with my mother dying when I was 13."

Although Gibbs didn't doubt a single word, he had to smirk at Tony's matter-of-fact delivery. He'd probably been told the same thing by every counsellor, therapist and psychologist that he'd crossed paths with in the last 25 years. Gibbs thought it was interesting that after all that time, it was only now that Tony was taking steps to address the issue.

"And what does that have to do with last night?" Gibbs asked.

Tony had meant to deflect the original question with an obvious answer. Stupid Gibbs. He rolled his neck and gave an honest answer. "Because I'm yet to turn from Ziva."

There was a beat of silence, and then Gibbs leaned forward and flipped the emergency switch. Tony swallowed hard and winced to himself, but kept his eyes forward. Oh boy, this was going to get awkward.

"Has the thought of turning from her crossed your mind?" Gibbs doubted it, but if Tony could be a damn good actor at times.

As expected, Tony shook his head. "No. But that's kind of what's screwing me up."

Gibbs watched him carefully. The damn kid was near tears, but it obviously wasn't just the last 24 hours that was beating him down. He wondered how long Tony had been struggling without Gibbs noticing.

"She's your best friend, Tony," Gibbs said. "Why are you feeling guilty?"

Tony broke gaze with the door and shot a trademark smirk at Gibbs. "Wait, did you seriously just ask me about my feelings? Don't we need icecream for this?"

Gibbs ignored the comment. Tony wasn't getting off the hook that easily. And Tony knew it. The smile dropped and he returned his eyes to the doors again.

"I don't feel guilty over what happened," he recited. "I couldn't have predicted it, and we didn't get any warning."

Gibbs took half a step towards him. "I wasn't talking about last night, Tony."

Of course Tony knew that, but he was hoping to deflect just a little longer. His fight or flight response was telling him to get the hell out of this conversation, but he was trapped and Gibbs would not flip that emergency switch until he got an answer he was satisfied with.

He cleared his throat before replying. "I feel guilty that she is my best friend, but I can't be straight with her."

"About?"

Tony gave a little shake of his head. He couldn't say it to Gibbs. He couldn't be that honest right now.

Gibbs felt guilt of his own. Obviously it was his rules that were responsible for the weight on Tony's mind. Gently, he said, "You're showing more loyalty to me than to Ziva, Tony. She's your partner."

Tony resisted the sudden urge to scream, and instead controlled his voice. "If it were the other way around, you would kick us both off the team," he replied, then looked Gibbs in the eye. "And I guess I have a lot of father issues to go along with the one about Mom."

They held gazes for a few long moments before Tony finally looked away. Gibbs was acutely aware of Tony's father issues—with his real father and with Gibbs. Tony had spent most of his childhood trying to be the perfect son. When he finally worked out that nothing he did would secure his father's approval, he gave up. Until Gibbs came along, and the cycle started all over again. Tony had spent their entire working relationship blindly loyal to Gibbs, and once again trying to be the perfect son and protégé. All he wanted in return was Gibbs' approval.

Things would have been fine. But then, along came Ziva. Ziva gave Tony a reason to break the rules. She pulled Tony in one direction while Gibbs tried to pull him in the other. And Tony, deeply loyal to both of them, could no longer withstand the tug-of-war. His internal battle over following Gibbs' rules and following his heart to Ziva was wearing him down.

Honestly, Gibbs didn't know whether he could or should hold that one troublesome rule over Tony's head anymore. He hadn't held Abby and McGee to it. When they started dating, Gibbs told himself he'd allow it because Abby was like the daughter he never had, and he wouldn't be the one to stand in the way of what made her happy. But shouldn't he provide the same grace to Tony, the man he thought of as a son?

Gibbs heaved a heavy sigh, and prepared himself to let Tony go. "I thought I'd taught you to be your own man, Tony."

Tony smirked sadly. "Sure you have. But only on the condition that I become you."

The comment hurt to hear, but Gibbs knew it was the truth. And now he understood that it wouldn't work. Tony needed people around him to love and perform for. A future spent in a basement with a boat and some bourbon would kill him. So instead, Gibbs would give him his approval.

"Just be you, Tony," he said. "Be what _you_ want. Don't be an imitation of me."

He clapped Tony on the shoulder, then flicked the emergency switch. As the elevator rose again, Tony felt the weight on his shoulders get a little lighter. He wasn't sure, but he thought Gibbs may have just given him a green light.

"Thank you, boss."

* * *

When Ziva's home phone finally rang, it was after 3pm and her kitchen was a mess. She'd beat out her frustration with a spatula rather than her fists for a change, and now she'd probably cooked enough meals to keep the entire team fed for a week. They'd all had a hand in helping her last night, and this was the least she could do to repay them.

She carried her carving knife into the living room to check caller ID. She didn't recognise the number, that that didn't mean much. She called Tony's cell 10 times a day, but she didn't have a clue what his actual number was. She couldn't even say with any certainty what her own desk phone number was. She was lost without her damn cell phone.

She let the call go through to the answering machine on the off chance it was the people who had taken her last night calling to make threats. But it was Tony's tired and stressed voice that echoed through her apartment.

"So, either you're angry that you were sent home and are avoiding me, or you're unconscious in a box buried underground again," he began. "For the love of God, Ziva, please don't screen my calls today."

She snatched up the phone. "I'm here. I was just in the other room."

She heard him sigh. "How are you doing?"

"I am fine," she stressed. "What have you found about the people who took me?"

Tony gave her a recap of the conversation the team had in Abby's lab, covering the phone calls, the video surveillance, the SUV and Gibbs' theory about the sniper.

"Me and Gibbs are running through past cases and pulling out any where someone may hold a grudge, or where family members might have sniper training."

Ziva raised an eyebrow. "I suspect that is a long list."

"You suspect right," Tony said.

"You would get through it faster if you had another pair of eyes," she pointed out.

Tony was ready for that. "Yes, we would. And that's why Agent Simons is down here helping us."

Ziva wrinkled her nose. She did not like weaselly Agent Simons. "Have you asked _her_ where she was last night?"

"Here at the Navy Yard," Tony replied, sounding vaguely amused. "I'm almost positive she wasn't involved."

Ziva rolled her eyes and played with the carving knife. "Fine. Thank you for sending over my clothes this morning."

"No problem. Sorry I couldn't pick you up."

"Yes, Abby told me about the mandatory counselling. How did it go?"

"Great!" Tony said sarcastically. "I never knew I had so many problems."

She smiled. "I got a notice from Vance as well."

"I thought you might."

"I deleted it."

Chuckle. "I thought you might."

"It's not necessary," she told him. "I was Mossad. Consider the situations I found myself in back then."

"I would actually very much _not _like to consider that," Tony replied. "But even still, it's not every day you wake up in a box down the bottom of a hole."

Ziva frowned. "A box in a hole? You mean a coffin in a grave."

She heard Tony's intake a breath. "Yeah, but we're saying box in a hole."

"Why?"

"Because it's easier for the rest of us to cope with," he said. "Less of a death connotation."

Ziva let him have it. "I see."

"I'll call you tonight with more updates," he promised. "Hopefully we'll have some crazy people in custody."

"Make sure you let me know."

* * *

**Yay for long weekends! Chapter 11 is up now.**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Heads up, we've got some adult themes making an appearance in this chapter. I think the T rating stands for now, but we'll be heading into M territory next time.**

**Disclaimer: God it's hard to keep making these original. I don't own the show or the characters.**

* * *

The knock on her door didn't come until after 8pm, when Ziva opened the door to Tony. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he gave her a brilliant Tony smile, and she couldn't help but return it.

"Evening, Zeevah," he said.

She opened the door wider and stood aside to let him in. He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook beside the door while Ziva grabbed a key off the kitchen counter. She brought it back to him and handed it over.

"I got another set cut today. This is yours back."

He took it back with a smile, and while he wound it back on to his set of keys she watched him quietly. She took in the way his shoulders were slumped, the way he had to lean his hip against the kitchen counter, the frown creasing his forehead, and realised that it was all because of her. If this had happened back at Mossad, Ziva knew that her father would not take it as deeply to heart as Tony and the rest of the team had. As far as Ziva was concerned, it was just another sign that she was where she was supposed to be.

"Do you want a drink?" she asked as he slipped the keys back into his jacket pocket.

Tony shook his head and stepped up to her with a serious look before wrapping his arms around her. She felt him take a deep breath.

"I just need to do this for a minute, okay?" he said against her ear. "Please indulge me."

Ziva put her arms around his waist and held him back. She knew exactly what he meant. As much as he needed this to assure himself that she was really, truly okay, Ziva needed it for much the same reason. She turned her face into his neck and inhaled deeply, drawing in the familiar, much loved scent of him. It occurred to her that somewhere along the way, Tony had become the first person to make her feel safe and comfortable. She hadn't gone looking for it, had never even thought that she needed it. But it had happened. His voice on the line last night had been her saving grace, and then, just as he'd promised, her brought her home. He'd brought her back to her family, and brought her back to him.

For his part, Tony was just relieved to have his hands on her again finally. He'd been desperate to hug her since Abby had handed him the phone last night. It wasn't exactly a secret that she'd scared the crap out of him, and not in the usual way with knives and paperclips. Now that she was wrapped around him, warm and breathing deeply, he could stop being so scared.

The counselling session that morning had, at times, been excruciating. But it had also helped him sort a few things out. Accepting Ziva as the most important thing in his life would not automatically result in her being taken away. He _had_ to get that through his head. Because he was tired of pretending that he wasn't in love with her. The lie was eating away at him more and more every day.

"I had an epiphany," Ziva said softly.

"Uh-oh," he joked.

She pulled her head back to look him in the eyes, but stayed within the circle of his arms. "I am happy. I am where I want to be. In Washington, at NCIS, with our team."

She watched as a spark seemed to light in his eyes, and a smile started pulling at his lips. It gave her the confidence to continue this honest streak.

"I did not dislike the work at Mossad, but it did not allow me to have a life. NCIS does, and I am not prepared to lose what I have built." She smiled and shook her head to make the point. "I feel like I belong here. I feel that I am loved, and accepted as I am. I feel at home."

Tony would never be able to tell her how relieved he was to hear that. "You do belong here, Ziva. Don't ever doubt that."

She smiled wider before turning serious again. "I want to stay here in your life, Tony."

His eyes fluttered shut for just a moment at just how good it felt to hear that. "Good. Because I want you in it. And although I would follow you to Israel if you returned, I would not make a very good Mossad liaison officer."

Ziva had to laugh, and then wrinkled her nose. "No, Tony, I do not think you would."

He smiled somewhat bashfully, and was taken by surprise when in the next second, Ziva's lips were on his.

Until the day she died, Ziva would swear that she had only intended to give him a quick, chaste kiss. But as soon as her mouth found his, her considerable desire for him took over. The stab between her legs caused her hips to press against him, and her hands balled around his shirt over his chest as she pulled him closer. As she licked at his bottom lip, she started praying that soon he would start kissing her like he had when they went undercover. She often thought of that fist kiss, when his hand slid over her jaw and then pulled her to him strongly, making her feel like he was crazy for her. She wanted that again.

She didn't have to wait long. As soon as Tony's tired brain registered what was happening, he burrowed his hand into her hair and pulled her harder against him. She moaned, and Tony smiled to himself. Yeah, he knew she liked that. Not all of their undercover assignment had been an act. His other hand pressed into her low on her back, encouraging the pressure she was creating there. He parted his lips and welcomed the stroking of her tongue against his. His body thrummed with pleasure, and as tired as he'd been just two minutes ago, he knew he'd do this all night if that's what she wanted.

After a long minute, Ziva broke the kiss and they both sucked in much needed air.

"That was to say thank you for last night," Ziva told him, her voice much deeper than normal.

He stroked both of his hands through her hair. "It was worth it."

When she kissed him again, he was ready for it. He came on strong right from the beginning, leaving her with no doubt that he wanted this. He turned them so that her back was against the kitchen counter and used his weight advantage to press against her. Ziva's arms went around his neck as she kissed him with abandon. His hand ran down her back and her skin sensitised under his touch, and her mind drifted to what it would feel like to have him moving inside her. She shuddered against him.

"Oh, my God, Ziva," he murmured against her mouth. He couldn't believe how good this felt. He was losing himself in her, and somehow he knew it would be a recurring theme for the rest of his life.

Again, Ziva was the one who broke this kiss. She pulled back only far enough to be able to see his eyes, and the blatant desire there sent glorious stabs of pleasure shooting through her body.

"That was because you make me happy," she said, her voice now barely above a whisper.

He looked at her in awe. "God, you make me happy too."

He met her again for another blistering kiss, and almost cried with joy when he felt her hands pulling his shirt out of his pants. He pulled up his mental list of all the things he'd ever wanted to do to her as his hand snaked down to squeeze her butt. Just as he stepped back, pulling her with him with the intention of getting her into her bedroom, his cell phone started ringing.

They both froze, and then Tony slowly pulled his head back.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," he gritted out.

Ziva reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone. "Gibbs," she read off caller ID.

Tony had to laugh. After basically getting Gibbs' blessing to break the rules that afternoon, _of course_ he was now the one putting a stop to it.

"Hilarious," he said, before giving Ziva one last, hard kiss and answering the phone. "Yes, boss?"

He kept running his hand up and down her back as he listened to Gibbs, not quite ready to let go of her just yet.

"Gear up, DiNozzo," Gibbs was saying. "We've got an ID."

Tony's eyes stopped their lazy exploration of Ziva's flushed face and he stood up straighter. "We do?"

"Abby got a hit on the SUV. We're heading out to Alexandria."

"Get McGee to text me the address. I'll meet you there."

He hung up and met Ziva's suddenly very alert gaze.

"What?" she asked.

"Abby got an ID. We're going to pick them up now."

Ziva grabbed his face between her hands and planted a hot, wet kiss on his lips before spinning away and running from the kitchen. "I just need shoes!" she called.

Tony winced as he slipped on his jacket. "Uh, maybe you should sit this out."

She appeared in the doorway to her bedroom, brandishing a stiletto heel. "What?" she demanded.

Tony held his hands up in defence. "I just mean because you're not supposed to be at work today."

Ziva stalked up to him, her eyes narrowed. "Tony, you all might be calling it a box in a hole, but from where I was, they stuffed me in a coffin and buried me in a grave. I am mad. And I need to be there."

Immediately, Tony caved. Not because her tongue had just been in his mouth, but because he knew that she needed to find some measure of control over the situation. She needed to get out there and kick some ass.

"Alright, ninja. Let's go."

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**Two more chapters to go, and I promise I will have this story finished by the weekend. Stay with me!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Okay, so it's been a while between drinks. Sorry about that. Real life happens, you know?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them, nor would I want that kind of responsibility. What I **_**would**_** like is some NCIS action figures. Who do I have to speak to about getting **_**those**_** babies into production? **

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Gibbs and McGee were out of the car and strapping on bulletproof vests when Tony's car pulled up behind them. Gibbs was only mildly surprised to see Ziva pop out of the passenger side. There was no question that she shouldn't be there to arrest the men who'd buried her, but he certainly understood her drive to bear witness to the takedown.

When she reached for a vest from the trunk of Gibbs' car, Gibbs shot a look at Tony. Wasn't he going to tell her no?

Tony saw and understood the look, but shook his head. "I already tried," he said, smirking. "If you want to give it a go, be my guest."

Ziva heard the exchange and raised her chin defiantly at Gibbs, daring him to tell her to sit this one out. He considered it, but knew it would be about as effective as telling the sun not to rise. She'd already made up her mind. She was going in, and the only way to stop her would be to knock her out.

He shook his head and pulled the fastenings on her vest tighter around her. "Don't make me regret this."

She gave his a smile and held up three random fingers. "Scout's honour."

The three men looked at each other with barely suppressed smirks.

"What?" she demanded.

McGee leaned over the trunk and put her fingers in the right position. "It's like this, Ziva."

Ziva dropped her hand. "What is a scout, anyway?" she asked, checking her gun's position on her hip before swiping the hair off her face and securing it with a hairband. "And what makes them so honourable?"

McGee said, "Well, it's like a club where you learn—"

"Are you two really having this conversation right now?" Gibbs cut in, incredulous.

"Sorry, Gibbs," Ziva said, just as McGee answered, "No, boss."

Gibbs gave Tony and Ziva the necessary background information. "Suspects on the tape have been identified as Michael Mason and George Savage. Mason's the big one. We got a better look at the licence plate from ATM footage three blocks from the park. SUV is registered to Mason."

Tony looked to Ziva. "That name sound familiar?"

Ziva shook her head. "No. Did you find any connection between us?"

"His brother is Petty Officer Sam Mason," McGee said. "We put him away last year when the drugs he was dealing on base ended up killing Mindy Kreiger."

The details of the case came back to Ziva. "She was sixteen, yes?"

McGee nodded. "Yes."

"Revenge," Tony stated, and shook his head in disbelief.

Ziva chuckled darkly, and fitted her earwig. "He thought _I_ was the soft touch? Let's go show him how soft I am."

* * *

While Gibbs and McGee crept up to the front door, Tony and Ziva got into position around back. Once they had the exit flanked, Tony whispered into his comms link.

"In position, boss." He peered through the window to his right. "Looks like two in the kitchen, can't tell if they're armed."

"We got one up front," Gibbs' voice came back. "We'll subdue him then head upstairs. On my mark."

While they waited for the count, Tony caught Ziva's dark eyes. He recognised the look on her face. She was determined to do some damage, and Tony honestly couldn't blame her. Someone had taken away her control over her own life, and that was not something that Ziva David took kindly to. Gibbs had made it clear that he didn't want Ziva to unleash the ninja on these guys, but Tony already knew that if she did, he'd look the other way.

He gave her a reassuring nod. "Got your back," he whispered.

Ziva gave him a quick smile in thanks as Gibbs started his countdown, and when he made it to 'one', Tony put his boot into the door and splintered the frame. Ziva swept into the house in front of him, gun drawn as they both yelled out a warning.

"NCIS! Federal agents! Get down on the ground!"

By the time they'd covered the short distance to the kitchen, Michael Mason had armed himself with a kitchen knife and swung it wildly at Ziva as she advanced on him.

"Drop it!" Ziva warned, her gun aimed at his head.

Mason seemed to recognise her. "You! You're the bitch!"

He swung at her again with a growl, throwing his body towards her and knocking her off balance. Ziva caught herself on the kitchen counter but lost her grip on the gun. While Tony tackled George Savage to prevent him from picking up the dropped weapon, Ziva drove the heel of her boot into Mason's foot, and the heel of her palm into his chin. His head snapped back and Ziva grabbed his wrist in both her hands as she tried to loosen his grip on the knife. She squeezed his thumb between her fingers, quickly finding the pressure point that made him drop the knife and cry out in pain. Then, she swung around the elbow him in the face, and Mason fell to his knees.

She took half a second to glance at Tony and check he was okay. He had Savage on his stomach, his knee pressing down hard in between the man's shoulderblades and both of Savage's arms wrenched behind his back. He cried out in pain as Tony snapped the cuffs around his wrists, but Tony didn't seem particularly swayed by his pleas for mercy.

Satisfied that Savage was under control, Ziva returned her attention to Mason. He looked up at her after wiping blood from his nose, and the meeting of eyes was all it took for him to grab for her again. He tackled her around the thighs and Ziva went down. As soon as she hit the floor, she used the slight bounce it gave her to rear up and land a bone-cracking punch on his jaw. He cried out and rolled off her, but Ziva followed him, grabbing her gun off the floor before she came to sit on top of him. She shifted quickly to bring her knee up under his chin and applied pressure to his throat before putting her gun against his head.

"Is that all you've got?" she baited. "Big guy like you taken down by one punch?"

Mason spat the blood running down the back of his nose at her, but the fact that he couldn't lift his head meant his aim was way off.

Ziva leaned in a started smacking his cheek. "Come on! You've got more than that! Give me a reason to bury _you_ six feet under!"

Tony did not like the sound of that. "Ziva," he said warningly. "Cuff him."

Ziva smiled down at Mason. "But that wouldn't give him a sporting chance," she said sweetly.

"You don't scare me," Mason growled. "You won't pull the trigger on someone you've already restrained."

Tony winced as Ziva's smile grew. "I've made easier kills."

"Ziva," Tony said again, a step away from begging. "Don't."

The tone in his voice spoke volumes. He'd lie for her if it came to that. He'd tell Gibbs and Vance she'd fired in self-defence. But he didn't want her to put him in that position, an ultimately neither did she. She'd been an assassin—_had_ been—but that wasn't who she was anymore. And although Tony knew of the things she had done, she never wanted to provide him with graphic evidence of the fact.

She let out a tense breath. "You're lucky my partner is more level-headed than I," she told Mason, then reached into her back pocket and pulled out her cuffs. She snapped one around Mason's wrist, holstered her gun and got off him. "Roll over."

"Gibbs entering," Gibbs called from the hallway, and a moment later he filled the doorframe. He looked down at the mess in front of him—tangled bodies, knives and blood on the floor—and bent to help Ziva get the second cuff around Mason's wrist.

"You good?" he asked her quietly.

"That's the rumour," Ziva replied easily, and Gibbs had to shoot a semi-disgusted look in Tony's direction. A comment like that could've come straight out of DiNozzo's mouth, and Gibbs had to wonder when it was exactly that his humour started rubbing off on his partner. Tony just laughed in approval.

"Michael Mason and George Savage?" Gibbs began. "You guys are under arrest for kidnapping and attempted murder of a federal agent."

"That means you're in big trouble," Tony said, and roughly pulled Savage to his feet.

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**Final chapter is up now. Go on: finish it. You've come this far.**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Here we go. The last chapter. I know I promised adult themes, but the unbelievably hot sex scene I wrote just seemed totally out of place. I decided to remove it, but never fear. It'll turn up in another story that I'll post soon.**

**Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of these people. I have a dog, and he's hard enough to be responsible for sometimes.**

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Tony leaned back against the two-way mirror of the interrogation room, and looked down at Mason with unrestrained disgust. The man had made a full confession, but that didn't mean he'd displayed any remorse. His blow-by-blow account of how he'd developed and executed his plan to capture one of the team had made Tony wonder if he'd written it down somewhere in dot-point format. He'd admitted to selecting Ziva as the target simply because she was a woman and seemed to pose the smallest threat to making the plan go awry.

Tony had to laugh. "Smallest threat," he repeated. "Who took you down with one punch. Yeah, I often find myself confusing her with a new-born kitten trying to find her feet." He mimed clumsy kitten feet with his hands.

"I knew we should've taken the old guy," Mason muttered.

Tony swore he could take the 'oh, no you didn't' intake of breath from his colleagues on the other side of the glass.

"You shouldn't have taken _anyone_," Tony said obviously. "Your brother admitted to selling drugs. There is no doubt surrounding his guilt. And even if there was, you don't handle it by drugging, kidnapping and burying a federal agent."

"I was trying to make a point."

Tony hit the sarcasm button. "Oh, I see. We put your brother away and now he's in a small, dark cell. So you thought you'd be symbolic and put one of us in a small, dark 'cell' as revenge."

Mason looked up calmly. "We never intended for her to die," he said without inflection. "She was just a bargaining chip. We would've let her out when you let my brother out."

Tony braced his hands on the desk and leaned forward. "That's why you left her cell phone. The plan was to call her with your demands, then get her to call us to start negotiating. Right?"

"Yes."

Tony could barely believe the stupidity. Mason had obviously put a lot of thought into the kidnapping part of the plan. Why hadn't he thought through the rest of it?

"Were you high when you came up with this?" Tony had to ask. "Even if we did live in Bizarro World and we had agreed to negotiate with you, getting someone out of the clink would take hours, probably days, to organise. And by that time, you would have become murderers."

Mason shrugged. "We thought she'd have plenty of air. We didn't bury her too far down."

Tony slammed his fist down on the desk, making Mason jump. "That's not the kind of thing you just leave to chance!"

They held gazes, and Tony could tell that Mason honestly did not care.

"I just wanted to see my brother," he said evenly.

Tony picked up the case file and headed for the door. "You will," he threw over his shoulder.

In the hallway between the interrogation room and the viewing room, Tony paused to take a few deep breaths. Sometimes he really and truly hated his job. It was hard enough to deal with when a suspect showed no remorse for hurting someone Tony had never met. But this? Frankly, Tony couldn't believe he'd refrained from strangling the guy with his bare hands.

When he thought he could convincingly pass for calm, he entered the full to almost overflowing viewing room. While he'd expected to see Gibbs, Ziva and McGee, the presence of Abby, Ducky _and_ Palmer took him by surprise.

"Cindy," he said to Abby, nodding in greeting, then looked around at Gibbs, McGee and Palmer. "Dad. Peter, Bobby." His eyes came to rest on Ducky. "Alice?"

Ducky gave him a withering look. "Mr Palmer and I thought we'd come down and share our support."

Tony reached around Abby to hand Gibbs the case file. "I think we've got everything out of him that we can right now."

Gibbs threaded through to crowd to the door. "Then I'll start on Savage."

"Or I can," Ziva piped up. "Give me one minute and I'll break him."

"No!" Gibbs and Tony replied.

"He doesn't need to be broken," Tony spelt out. "He already confessed."

Ziva crossed her arms and slumped against the two-way glass. She'd expected no less, but it still pissed her off. Gibbs headed to the adjoining interrogation room where Savage had been sitting alone for the last hour and a half, and Ducky made for the door as well.

"Come on, Mr Palmer," he said. "I believe we have a brand new cadaver to examine."

"Right away, Doctor," Palmer said, and obediently followed.

With noticeably more space to move in the room, Tony sidled up next to Ziva at the window and they watched Gibbs take a seat across from the increasingly nervous Savage.

Abby tugged his sleeve. "Hey. Ziva's Marcia, right?"

Tony looked down at her as if any other alternative was crazy. "Of _course_ she's Marcia. You think she's _Jan_? We don't have a Jan. We don't _want_ a Jan."

"She is _so not_ Jan," McGee agreed.

Abby nodded. "No, that's what I thought. Because you're Greg, right? And there's that whole…slightly inappropriate vibe between him and Marcia."

Ziva heaved a sigh as the conversation went on around her. Once again, she wasn't entirely sure what her friends were talking about, or that they were all mentally sound. But she loved them, she honestly did, and she could no longer imagine life without them.

She returned her gaze to the interrogation, but her thoughts were far from the man in the room looking for revenge over the imprisonment of his best friend. Instead, she thought of her family in Tel Aviv and her family in DC. They were so utterly different that it somehow didn't seem fair to compare them, and yet she found herself doing it almost daily.

Despite his sins, and there were many, Ziva still loved her father. Of course she did. But only because of their genetic connection. Eli David was not a wonderful or kind man. He had not been there for her as a child. He did not value her as a daughter or as a singular person. He did not send cards on her birthday with wishes for her happiness. He saw her as a soldier. Part of his army. And the fleeting affection he showed for her when she visited Israel was, she suspected, mostly for the sake of appearances.

In comparison, her friends here showed affection for her every single day. A hug from Abby, a gentle smile from McGee, a touch from Tony, a slap from Gibbs. For her birthday, Tony, Abby and McGee had taken her to South Carolina because she missed swimming in the ocean, and Gibbs had given her Kelly's old, dog-eared copy of _Alice in Wonderland_. And when just two nights ago she'd reached out to them for help, they had rallied around her and given all their strength instead of berating her for weakness or mistakes.

She heard the door to the interrogation room open and close again, and a moment later she felt Tony at her shoulder.

"You okay?" he asked. "You look like you're zoning out."

Ziva blinked and looked around. Abby and McGee had left, leaving her alone with Tony.

She looked up at him and gave him a genuine smile. "I am fine."

He cocked his head to the side and regarded her curiously, and Ziva thought that if they had been in her kitchen at the time, she definitely would have kissed him again. Instead, she poked his stomach before turning back to the interrogation room.

She felt him settle into his regular spot, his shoulder lined up with her spine and close enough that they would bump against each other when they moved. The familiarity made her chest ache, and she reached behind her to take his hand. When he laced his fingers through hers and brushed the briefest of kisses against her temple, Ziva knew for sure that this was where she fit.

"This is where I want to be," she told him again, and added a note to her mental To Do list. _File papers for permanent residency._

**The END. **

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**Okay, I'm not particularly happy with these last two chapters, but my imagination has moved on to other stories and I found it hard to get my mojo back for this one. In the end I just had to post it and end it. Thanks for coming all the way with me! And thanks to everyone who posted reviews or marked the story as a favourite. I hope to see you hanging around some of my other stories.**


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